David Makovsky to MESH:

Dennis Ross and I wrote our book because we thought there is a need to base policy toward the Middle East on the complex realities that America confronts there. For too long, ideological blinders or theoretical views of the region have guided those who shaped and made U.S. policy. It is time that changed. And that is why we decided to write a book that explores the myths and the illusions that too often have driven American approaches to the region. We are not content only with exposing why certain key assumptions have been wrong and have produced mistaken policies. We want to outline and explain the key assumptions that ought to be driving what America does and how it does it in the region.

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Product Description

Two experts debunk misconceptions about the Middle East and set clear-eyed policies for the future

Why has the United States consistently failed to achieve its strategic goals in the Middle East? According to Dennis Ross and David Makovsky, two of America's leading experts on the region, it is because we have been laboring under false assumptions, or mythologies, about the nature and motivation of Middle East countries and their leaders. In Myths, Illusions, and Peace, the authors debunk these damaging fallacies, held by both the right and the left, and present a concise and far-reaching set of principles that will help America set an effective course of action in the region.

Among the myths that the authors show to be false and even dangerous is the idea that Israeli-Palestinian peace is the key to solving all the Middle East's problems; that regime change is a prerequisite for peace and democracy; and that Iran's leadership is immune from diplomatic and economic pressure.

These and other historic misunderstandings have generated years' worth of failed policies and crippled America's ability to make productive decisions in this volatile part of the world, a region that will hold the key to our security in the twenty-first century. Ross and Makovsky offer a critical rethinking of American perceptions at a time of great import and change.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #471508 in Books
• Published on: 2009-06-11
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Hardcover
• 368 pages

Features

• ISBN13: 9780670020898
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

From Publishers Weekly
Ross (The Missing Peace) and Makovsky (Making Peace with the PLO) contend that if the U.S. wants to broker peace in the Middle East, it must cease operating from ideological assumptions and œsee the world as it is. Ross, now an adviser to Hillary Clinton, was chief negotiator for the Clinton administration, and Makovsky is with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy; their call comes with real bona fides. œContext matters, they write—but they, too, fail to consider the entire context in question: Israel is all but denied agency, as the authors fail to address the impact of its occupation of Palestinian lands. What may be the crux of the book is found in a mention of This Much Too Promised Land by Ross's former deputy, Aaron David Miller, which examines American negotiating mistakes, including the efforts of his and Ross's team. Ross and Makovsky's open antagonism to Miller suggest they may be less interested in learning from errors than in explaining why everyone else is wrong. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

About the Author
Dennis Ross is special advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for the Gulf and Southwest Asia. He is the author of the bestselling The Missing Peace.

Analyst and former journalist David Makovsky is a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the author of Making Peace with the PLO.

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Customer Reviews

What about Afghanistan?!
In the Middle East there are three main problems: Afghanistan/Pakistan and the Taliban and al-Qaeda in those two countries, Iran and their nuclear program, and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The authors totally ignore the first one, but Afghanistan and Pakistan right now is the main foreign policy headache for President Obama. So to me the book was really incomplete. In the Index the words Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Taliban were not even to be found. It's hard for me to imagine a book on the Middle East without those words in the Index. Maybe the authors don't see Afghanistan and Pakistan as part of the Middle East, that only the Arab countries are the Middle East, if so that is incorrect. Or perhaps they have no solution for Afghanistan. The Obama White House is trying to find a way for the U.S. to get out of Afghanistan without the Karzai government falling and the Taliban taking over like it did pre-9/11 when the Taliban let al-Qaeda establish headquarters in Afghanistan. Afghanistan is as big a headache for Obama as Iran is, yet the authors mention nothing on that in their book which I found disappointing.

Good Insights, but -
Why has the U.S. consistently failed to achieve peace in the Middle East? According to the authors, it is because we have repeatedly fallen for myths about the region. These include: 1)Iran's religious leadership is immune from diplomatic and economic pressures, 2)Israeli-Palestinian peace is key to solving all the Middle East problems, and 3)Regime change is prerequisite for peace and democracy.

The authors early on point out that Middle-East diplomacy must be addressed in the larger context of China, Russia (seeking a role as counterweight to the U.S.?, nervous about its own Muslim inhabitants), and Global Warming (the Middle East can undercut initiatives if they lower prices).

Clearly, the preeminent threat of our time is that radical Islamists may get their hands on a nuclear weapon. In addition, say the authors, it remains unlikely that Islamists extremists who embrace suicide bombing are deterrable. While perhaps true, downgrading the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from top priority in the context of terrorism seems extremely dangerous, given Bin Laden and others listing it as a prime grievance. On the other hand, the authors do make the case that this 60-year-old conflict is not the answer to every Mid-East problem - eg. the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), and Gulf War I and II had no connection to the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

"The main opponents of Arab-Israeli peace . . . primarily the Islamists" is a statement that suggests a serious bias on the author's part - no documentation was given. Though the book repeatedly slams Bush II policies in the area, this statement creates wonder that the authors would have done better. Further, at no point do they depict Israelis as a source of problems - even their continual building of settlements.

Moving on to Iran, the authors begin stating that U.S. problems with Iran go back many years . . . starting with the 1979 revolution - oblivious to the U.S. role in overthrowing the elected Iranian government to protect U.S. and British oil interests. Regardless, the current situation is depicted from both the viewpoints of "engagers," and "regime changers." Again, solutions are muddled by Russia, China, and the 2007 NIE findings on Iran's nuclear program. Ross/Makovsky see sanctions as having impact - prices of affected goods have risen 50%, and possibly this underlies the dissidents' energy in the latest election. On the other hand, the book should have done a better job of examining the problems associated with Iran's declining production - the material was unclear what the root causes and cures are.

Finally, "Myths, Illusions, and Peace" probably makes its greatest contribution regarding the topic of Israel's value to the U.S. Other sources conclude that Israel has no positive value whatsoever; Ross/Makovsky point out that Israel has protected Jordan vs. Syria, and can be seen as a counterweight to Iran, Hamas, and Hizbollah. The latter points, however, were not explicated.

They Don't Have a Solution: the Same Thinking which Created the Present Mess
If you are interested in "Finding a new direction for America in the Middle East" (the sub-title of this book), you won't find it in this book. The so-called "new direction" is almost indistinguishable from the old direction, in the last years of the Bush Administration - which led to the present mess.

Dennis Ross and David Makovsky were both staff members of the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, an offshoot of AIPAC (the America - Israel Public Affairs Committee) the very powerful pro-Israel lobbying group. Their book defines Middle East policy issues as supporters of Israel's policies would like to see them defined.

The book presents Middle East issues from an exclusively Jewish viewpoint. Nearly half of the book, up to page 123, mainly presents an extensive history of the US-Israel relationship from 1948 to the present, including detailed presentations of the views of Israel's supporters in the US government. In contrast, while three chapters (Chapters 7,8,9) are devoted to Iran, Ross and Makovsky make no attempt to study or describe the political history of Iran or its relationship with the US. Iran's `Islamist Revolution of 1979' which expelled the Shah of Iran, receives just that two-word description `Islamist Revolution' - with no attempt to explore or describe what forces were at work. The pivotal 1953 coup, engineered by the US Central Intelligence Agency, which overthrew Iran's government headed by Mohammed Mossadeq, is not even mentioned (read All the Shah's Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Terror by Stephen Kinzer). Politics in Saudi Arabia, Lebanon or Syria receive not a word.

Amazingly, Ross and Makovsky do not even mention the long and bloody Iran-Iraq war of the 1980's, in which the US supported Saddam Hussein against Iran. The relationship between the US and Iran since the 1979 revolution in Iran, or since the 1953 US-supported coup, is not discussed or even mentioned. The origin and causes of the present hostility between the US and Iran are left totally unexplained.

Ross and Makovsky's implication is that to understand Middle East issues, the US-Israeli relationship should be studied in the greatest detail; for all other Middle Eastern countries, their history and politics are irrelevant. All that matters is how they relate to Israel at this moment.

If this book presents the best available US thinking on Iran, the future looks bleak. Israel's preferred course with Iran would be to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities - and count on the US to bail it out from any unforeseen consequences. But as von Clausewitz remarked 200 years ago, wars always develop in ways which are unforeseen (Vietnam, Iraq are recent examples).

Much of the book is devoted to attacking the "linkage" theory, which they attack by first presenting it in a ridiculous form (a common rhetorical trick in politics): "the idea that if only the Palestinian conflict were solved, all other Middle East conflicts would melt away." Of course, there are differences between Middle Eastern states unrelated to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. But Israeli's treatment of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza underlies the fact that 90 percent or more of the populations of Moslem countries have a negative view of the United States and are hostile to Israel. Their governments cannot ignore such views. When Israel complained in 2009 that neighboring Arab countries treat it as a pariah, not allowing Israeli trade missions in their countries, or permitting flights by Israeli airlines in their airspace, the US proposed in 2009 (after this book appeared) that Arab countries break the ice with Israel by making such conciliatory gestures. Netanyahu, on the other hand, refused to halt expansion of Israeli settlements. Thereupon, Saudi Arabia (with close economic ties to the US) immediately declined to make any conciliatory moves to Israel.

Conveniently, this downplaying of the importance of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict justifies the Netanyahu government's refusal (supported by American Jewish organizations) to halt expansion of Israeli settlements in the West Bank. This has put Israel in conflict with the Obama Administration, and is now blocking any peace negotiations between the Israelis and Palestinians. But in Ross and Makovsky's book, the issue of settlements is not even mentioned!

The final chapter, `A New Realism for U.S. Policy in the Middle East,' only 8 pages long, presents their recommendations. They are very, very skimpy, and vague. First, "we must start by seeing the region as it is" (who chooses not to?). We should help in "liberalizing regimes and helping reformers throughout the Middle East." How? Iranian opposition leaders in 2009 begged the US not to endorse them, since America's reputation in the Moslem world has become so toxic that US support would instantly discredit any Middle Eastern reformer. Finally, the US must not "walk away or leave Israel in the lurch" - as if anyone, from Douglas Feith to Mearsheimer, Walt or Zbigniew Brzezinski were proposing to do so.

Ross and Makovsky disparage the record of the Bush Administration in the Middle East. They have no choice: it was an obvious failure. Refusing to talk to Iran while hurling scarcely-camouflaged threats ("You're next!") has left the US with Iran's nuclear program to deal with. Bush's hands-off cowardice vis-a-vis the Israeli-Palestinian peace process has left Israel on even worse terms with its neighbors. But while disparaging Bush's record, Ross and Makovsky support the same goals and many of the same methods, and share the same conceptual framework.

Basing Middle East policy on the use of military force as George W. Bush did, deploying US military supremacy in Middle Eastern countries while ignoring political forces, cultural traditions and public opinion in every country except Israel, has been disastrous for the US. Enormously costly wars are being fought in Iraq and Afghanistan under conditions where US military and technological supremacy give no advantage. This policy, to which Ross and Makovsky offer little alternative, has left the US militarily weakened and enormously weakened financially. It has been a disaster for the US national interest.